At
Heritage Camp in the Rockies near Fraser Colorado this weekend, I've had my first up close and personal look at the "
largest forest insect blight ever seen in North America" - the ongoing plague of
Mountain pine beetles that are laying waste to vast swaths of pine forests across Colorado (and neighboring states). The beetles like hot summers, with their populations expanding dramatically, resulting in outbreaks visible like an ugly red rash of dead trees across entire mountainsides. This particular
outbreak we are living through is perhaps the biggest one ever, being at least 10-times bigger than previous recorded ones! Of course, this has nothing to do with global warming!
I snapped these images during our outdoor picnic lunch today, at a camp that used to be completely forested a few years ago (we are told), but is now surrounded by acres of wide open land like the aftermath of a slash-n-burn operation or a clearcut! They are replanting pines after clear felling the dead ones, so hopefully this forest will recover. But for now this melancholy forest of mostly dead trees carries a sense of dark foreboding, like the aftermath of Saruman's assault on Fanghorn forest... but with the Ents long gone from the battlefield!
Can this forest recover from this blight? And can we actually help by clear-cutting and replanting pines, or are we making things worse in the long run? Just staring at these rusty hillsides, it seems to me rather unlikely that this forest can go back to its previous state any time soon - this is surely the cusp of a hysteresis?
Now that my talk is out of the way, I hope to have more time to take more pictures tomorrow to share here. (and isn't it crazy/wonderful to have wifi at this mountain camp so I can share these thoughts and images?)
I'm a reconciliation ecologist studying the responses of wildlife to human influences through an evolutionary lens. I seek ways to apply evolutionary ecology towards reconciling biodiversity conservation with human development. Also a father of two girls; photographer; birdwatcher; bookworm; cinephile; and explorer of the internets.
